WHEN THE DAY’S rain has ended
and the sky wears it dark as a stain
go and see what you have collected: water
filling up the flower boxes, overflowing the teacups
you left on the porch.
Go and see how still it has become
in your unintentional catching,
how it seems to sleep.
How the cold night coming hushes it further, brushes
away its shivering with icy fingers
until the water seems encased in glass,
museum safe.
Go and see how even then
its calm is a choice you have made: think how you move
through air, how a room changes even with your
smallest breath,
how everything you hold is transformed, how the water
changes shape to hold your fingertips, your breath cutting
its slick surface, how nothing
but memory is still and unchanging.
Lights in the Hand 